Latur/Beed (Maharashtra), June 4: The body of senior BJP leader and union minister Gopinath Munde, who was killed in a road accident in New Delhi early Tues, was flown in to Latur from Mumbai Wed morning.

Thousands of mourners, as well as senior party leaders, activists and commoners received the coffin at Latur field.

Earlier, the body was taken from the Mumbai residence of the Munde family, wherever security forces accorded a guard of honour, for the flight to Latur.

From Latur, it had been taken by a special helicopter to Beed, that is around sixty five km away, for the last rites.

The body will be unbroken for public homage at the sprawling Vaijnath Sugar factory field until around 2 p.m. before the last rites. The regime has proclaimed a three-day mourning for Munde.

Munde’s eldest daughter and Parali lawgiver Pankaja Munde-Palve can perform the last rites at the state observance being accorded to Munde. His wife is Pramod Mahajan’s sister and they have 3 daughters.

Top BJP leaders, as well as L.K. Advani, Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Sushma Swaraj, different union ministers, Maharashtra political bigwigs, chief ministers of many states and party activists from everywhere the country ar expected to attend the observance.

Late Tues evening, Munde’s body was delivered to Mumbai from Delhi and unbroken at his residence in Purna Building, Worli, wherever relatives, friends and shut acquaintances besides VVIPs paid their respect.

Ironically, it’s constant building wherever his brother-in-law and former BJP strongman Pramod Mahajan was gunned down by his brother Pravin eight years past.

Subsequently, Munde’s body was unbroken at the BJP state headquarters at Nariman purpose in south Mumbai wherever party staff from Mumbai and close areas paid court.

Munde was scheduled  to travel to Beed Wed to deal with a series of triumph rallies, his initial visit to his home district when the BJP-led NDA sweptwing to power last month.

Munde was born Dec 12, 1949, in Parali-Vaijnath village wherever he had his schooling.

Soon later, he plunged into student politics together with BJP strongman and later his brother-in-law, late Pramod Mahajan, and was confined throughout the Emergency of 1975-1977.

Over the years, Munde was elective  5 times as lawgiver in Maharashtra, then Leader of Opposition within the Maharashtra assembly, deputy chief minister of the state, and later because the deputy leader of opposition within the Lok Sabha, and last week was created the union minister for rural development.